Joint Commitments and Individual Participation

(Work in progress. Please do not quote. Comments are more than welcome!)

The widely accepted liberal paradigm that people are born free and the empirical fact that sometimes we feel or indeed have obligations to various groups we are members of rest quite uneasily together. The joint commitment that we may have in the latter case is the basis on which Margaret Gilbert develops quite plausible theory for legitimation of political obligation. However in her account the individual freedom seems lost. For the last few years I am developing refinements to the actual contract theory in an attempt to justify political obligations on the basis thereof but without forgoing individual freedom. I believe this will be the case when obligations to the group are seen as arising not from mere belonging but from the actual participation in it, in which case obligations may vary in degree.

Here you can see the full text of the latest ‘stable’ version (3.5, last revision 2005) presented at the Jurisprudence Discussion Group session in 2004.